


Rivalry

by Eloarei



Series: OP rewatch short fics [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 22:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: Buggy hated Shanks for a variety of reasons, and the fact that he chose Benn Beckman over him as both lover and first mate was definitely NOT one of them. Definitely not.





	Rivalry

**Author's Note:**

> Third in a series of weekly short fics focusing on less popular characters.  
> Anyway, Buggy is an idiot and I actually enjoyed writing him quite a lot.

Like hell he was ever going to admit it to anyone else, but his rivalry with Red-Hair was... complicated.  
  
First off, Buggy was well aware that Shanks didn't remotely see them as rivals. Probably the idiot didn't even know that Buggy harbored any ill feelings toward him at all. How the man ever survived as a pirate was beyond him, because sensing a threat was supposed to be one of a seafarer's most basic abilities. But the redheaded dork had just continued palling around with him like he couldn't sense Buggy's murderous intent.  
  
Second, he did still sort of feel a type of camaraderie with the guy. They'd been shipmates, after all; two of only a few young people on the Oro Jackson. Buggy didn't take with that cutesy nonsense about how crewmates were supposed to look after each other like family just because they happened to be on the same boat. He wasn't going to just lay his life down for Swashbuckler #7 if he wasn't close with the person; they had to prove themselves first! But he _was_ close with Shanks, if only because they had seen each other all the damn time.  
  
That... probably fed into reason number three of why his rivalry with Red-Hair wasn't so cut and dry.  
  
It was... well he wasn't going to ever tell anyone else, on pain of death, but he had to at least admit it to himself: he... was kind of enamored with the guy. Well, he was handsome! Even with the dumb-looking straw hat (which had suited Roger much better, alright; he should've never given it to an idiot like Shanks), still he was a good-looking guy. Even with that outrageously red hair-- Who even had hair that color? It was ridiculous! And that dumb grin he wore constantly, like he was honestly too stupid to realize how harsh the world was. Even with all that, he was still... pretty attractive.  
  
And- and Buggy wasn't _shallow_ , so it wasn't like that was his only reason for liking Shanks. No, despite his idiocy and his infuriating naivete, he was pretty... clever, and kind. Not that kindness was an important trait for a pirate, of course, but it was kind of hard not to like, especially when it had been directed at him. They'd been... companions, if not friends, so that had happened sort of a lot.  
  
The two of them had sort of a balance, Buggy thought, where they didn't exactly talk about their feelings, but let them float free in the air between them like dust motes. Of course, such a nice arrangement couldn't last forever.  
  
He'd always remember the day, and the mortifying heat and anger that rose up in him, when he walked in on Shanks straddling one of the more senior crewmembers, some long-haired rifleman he couldn't remember the name of, who was looking very smug with an unlit cigarette poking out of his mouth while Shanks kissed his jaw. They didn't even notice him there, they were so disgustingly involved in each other. Buggy probably could have stood there and watched them for an hour, but he wasn't a masochist (that much) so he turned and fled the scene. Shanks' goofy grin and the faint lamplight shining bright in his eyes were the last thing he saw.  
  
It tore him to pieces-- and this was before he'd had his powers, so putting himself back together was no easy task. It was even harder pretending to Shanks that he wasn't upset; _not_ because they were friends or anything, of course, but because disagreements between crewmates just made things harder for everyone. So he took a leaf out of dumb Red-Hair's book and plastered a smarmy grin on his face and went on, focusing on other things, things that were more important. Like treasure.  
  
And then of course the idiot made him slip up, killing two birds with one stone he hadn't even known he'd thrown, and then Buggy was out the ten mil he probably could have got from selling that devil fruit, _and_ shit out of luck when it came to swimming.  
  
He panicked for a few days, because now how the hell was he going to get that sunken treasure? What, have someone _else_ go dive and bring it back to him? He spent another week pissed at Shanks when he realized his dreams were more sunk than the treasure.  
  
Well, no, that wasn't right. He was _still_ pissed at Red-Hair. Of course. A week had passed and, sure, Buggy's ire had faded somewhat, but things were never going to be the way they had been before. After ruining his dream, Shanks could never expect Buggy to entirely forgive him. So even if they returned to acting sort of like friends and laughing over stupid things and eating and fighting together, well, they probably both knew that their friendship was on the rocks.  
  
So the fact that Shanks drove the final stake between them really wasn't a surprise to Buggy (or so he told himself later). It was mere months after the fateful incident, when Red-Hair decided to strike out on his own, though not _al_ one.  
  
“Buggy!” he called, running over from across the deck and catching him by the shoulder. He grinned stupidly and continued on with no preamble. “I'm getting together a crew of my own. Wanna join me?”  
  
For a moment, Buggy could feel his heart all the way up in his throat. (It was gross, and it gave him shivers.) He asked, trying to sound disdainful of the idea, “What? As your first mate?” because obviously he was more suited toward captainhood, but honestly if he was going to sub for anymore (other than Roger, of course) he supposed it would be Red-Hair.  
  
But then Shanks had shot down even this smallest of hopes, and with hardly more than a sheepish grin. “Well, second mate. Benn's already agreed to be my first.”  
  
Buggy's stomach dropped straight to his feet, and left him feeling sick. Right. _Benn._ That was his name, the smirky rifleman. Not that Buggy was capable of forgetting, since Shanks talked about him all the god damn time. It was just that he hadn't even considered that Shanks would pick him as first mate. Oh he'd figured the guy would be in Shanks' crew in some capacity (unless he decided to go back home to his _wife_ or something, like a lot of the other guys did when they heard Roger's crew was disbanding), but to be first mate?  
  
He could handle the fact that Shanks had chosen some freaking _old guy_ as his lover; he'd been handling it just fine for months! And he could have dealt with being crewmates with the guy and having to avoid walking in on them together, because he'd been doing that too (mostly). Be he could not, and _would not_ , voluntarily be subordinate to the asshole!  
  
“Like hell,” he said, scowling and shrugging Red-Hair's hand off of him. “Why would I want to be second mate to _your_ dumb ass when I could be captain of my own crew?” Until that moment, he hadn't seriously considered forming his own crew, but now it seemed like a pretty obvious choice.  
  
“Ah, right.” Shanks looked a little sad behind his idiot grin, and Buggy bitterly thought, _'serves you right!'._ “Well, just thought I'd ask. Maybe we'll see each other out on the sea some time.”  
  
And that was just about the last Buggy had seen of the man, other than the two days it took for the Oro Jackson to find a port to dump them all off at.  
  
He _wasn't_ resentful that things had ended like that. He _was_ still mad that Shanks was such a life-ruining jackass. That was _all it was._ It had been over 20 years, and Buggy _almost never_ thought about him anymore, or wondered how he was doing, or if the sea had swallowed him up, or if he'd finally got tired of that Benn (younger then than _he_ was now; funny how he always used to think of the guy as old). He didn't think about any of that, basically _ever_ , because he was a great pirate with a fearsome crew and really who even _gave a shit_ what that dumbass Red-Hair was up to these days?   
  
But he was still going to kick that annoying straw hat kid's ass. Because rivalry. 

 


End file.
